From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262304AbTJGOCF (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:02:05 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262331AbTJGOCF (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:02:05 -0400 Received: from adsl-68-248-192-57.dsl.klmzmi.ameritech.net ([68.248.192.57]:43015 "EHLO mail.domedata.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262304AbTJGOCB convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:02:01 -0400 From: tabris To: mru@users.sourceforge.net (=?iso-8859-1?q?M=E5ns?= =?iso-8859-1?q?=20Rullg=E5rd?=) Subject: Re: devfs vs. udev Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:01:56 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.3 References: In-Reply-To: Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200310071001.56459.tabris@tabris.net> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tuesday 07 October 2003 08:38 am, Måns Rullgård wrote: > I noticed this in the help text for devfs in 2.6.0-test6: > > Note that devfs has been obsoleted by udev, > . > It has been stripped down to a bare minimum and is only provided for > legacy installations that use its naming scheme which is > unfortunately different from the names normal Linux installations > use. > > Now, this puzzles me, for a few of reasons. Firstly, not long ago, > devfs was spoken of as the way to go, and all drivers were rewritten > to support it. Why this sudden change? Secondly, that link only > leads me to a package describing itself as an experimental > proof-of-concept thing, not to be used for anything serious. How can > something that incomplete obsolete a working system like devfs? > Thirdly, udev appears to respond to hotplug events only. How is it > supposed to handle device files not corresponding to any physical > device? Finally, I quite liked the idea of a virtual filesystem for > /dev. It reduced the clutter quite a bit. As for the naming scheme, > it could easily be changed. My word is hardly authoritative, but istr hearing that the original devfs-maintainer has abandoned this code (probably after multiple complaints about it being badly implemented, full of bugs, locking issues/races, etc). Not having used it with 2.6 yet, I don't know much about it's status in that tree. So, although devfs may still work, and even be in a better condition than udev (at present); no longer maintained (and little intention of changing) may be considered equivalent to obsolete. -- tabris - Max told his friend that he'd just as soon not go hiking in the hills. Said he, "I'm an anti-climb Max." [So is that punchline.]